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What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Tue, 07/20/2010 - 20:01 — will

I was unemployed from the period of December 2009 to July 2010 (or as I like to call it my summer vacation). I've been working or studying my entire life. It wasn't until the layoff that I had any real freedom to pursue my own interests and desires. Not wanting to waste this time I decided to keep busy. Sometimes it was work. Very hard, disciplined work. Sometimes it was challenging. But mostly it was fun. And always it was rewarding. I wanted to make this a time to be remembered and create a template for life when I landed a new job.

Tried volunteering at a community garden but nobody showed up at the established time!

Visited a Humanist group (churchish thing), but it was weird and also boring.

Filed state and federal taxes.

Inventory of all my belongings and sold off stuff I don't use.

In Progress:

Hacking: Worked on a design project (no details yet).

Self: Writings on forgiveness, assumptions about self and others

Health: Physical Fitness goals

Cooking: Working my way through Martha Stewart's "Fresh Flavor Fast" (which is actually really good for noobs and has great recipes)

Literature: Reading Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson

Guitar: Building speed and skill on my guitar

Music and Movies: AFI Top 100 Films of all time, 50 Dystopian Movies of all time, Top Directors of all time, a horde of TV shows and lots of misc. movies and things, mostly Music DVDs and documentaries

Music and Movies: Deleting or replacing my pirate MP3s with physical media. 20% down, am working on next 20%. Buying lots of new music.

I didn't quite finish what I set out to do, but I got very far. There are still quite a few projects to complete. I didn't finish my project. I didn't play as much guitar as I wanted, because I have a somewhat obsessive attraction to the thing and I don't get anything else done. I wanted to complete more writing. I wanted to be in fantastic shape, but as it turns out I'm genetically lame (ha!) when it comes to athletics. I injure easily and progress comes slowly. But all in all, I'm satisfied. I lead a richer and fuller life because of it.